In conventional capsule endoscopes that are inserted in a body for observing organs, images are picked up by a charge coupled device (CCD) or the like, and after image processing such as white balance processing and gamma processing is performed on the images, the same compression is carried out on any image.
In contrast, in the image encoding device disclosed for example in Patent Document 1, a compression method is disclosed in which the center of the image is defined as a important region, and the periphery of the image is defined as a non-important region, whereby compression of differing extents is performed on the respective regions.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H06-334985